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Center for Plumbing Safety

The U.S. National Priority Plumbing Safety Study, 2016-2022

A 5-year U.S. Environmental Protection Agency backed research program concluded in 2022, and the discoveries are publicly available. Please see below for details. If you still have questions contact Andrew Whelton at awhelton@purdue.edu.

Background

In 2016, the U.S. government provided our multi-university team a $1,989,000 grant to conduct this project. Amazing organizations from the building construction, plumbing, water utility, education, and public health sectors also kicked in a match of $1,100,000, leading to a more than $3 million dollar effort. Together, we worked to understand how to make certain the drinking water you use at home, at work, and schools is safe. The title of the project was “Right Sizing Tomorrow's Water Systems for Efficiency, Sustainability, and Public Health."

The 17-page final report can be downloaded here. The multi-university team addressed water safety issues and questions for routine building use as well as situations following disasters and contamination.

Who Led the Effort?

The team involved more than 70 people from six different institutions. University leads included Purdue University (Andrew Whelton, Amisha Shah), Michigan State University (Jade Mitchell, Joan Rose, ‪A. Pouyan Nejadhashemi‬, Erin Dreelin), Manhattan College/San Jose State University (Juneseok Lee), Tulane University (Tiong Gim Aw), and the University of Memphis (Maryam Salehi).‬ Numerous postdoctoral associates, graduate students, undergraduate students also participated.

What Did You Discover?

The brief report provides a high-level perspective of how the team achieved its three objectives. Activities were conducted through public, industrial, and government sector engagement, numerous field and laboratory discoveries and new inventions that are publicly available. The discoveries had far-reaching impact in water safety understanding, plumbing design, operation, and policy. There is a lot more to do, but discoveries here provide a stronger foundation from which others can drive towards safer and more efficient plumbing.

Program Objective 1. Improve the public’s understanding of decreased flow and establish a range of theoretical plumbing flow demands from the scientific literature and expert elicitation with our strategic partners.

  • The PlumbingSafety.org website had 10,000s page views. Educational YouTube videos as well as lists of resources, and Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) were created.
  • 70+ presentations were delivered for multiple sectors (public health, water utility, manufacturer, building design) in the U.S., Canada, the U.K., and also an international water association webinar.
  • We supported homeowners about water testing, materials, and also in response to disasters like wildfires and spills. One example is that we provided onsite support to survivors of the 2018 Camp Fire, the deadliest most destructive fire in California’s history.
  • We helped develop the AWWA COVID-19 building water system guidance.
  • We established a range of theoretical plumbing flow demands.

Program Objective 2. Examine the factors and their interactions that affect water quality through fate and transport simulation models for residential and commercial buildings. Discoveries in specific topics were published in more than 25 peer-reviewed scientific publications. These topics included:

  • Knowledge-gaps, risks, and resources for predicting water quality at building fixtures
  • New health risk models and assessments for Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Acanthamoeba, and Naegleria fowleri
  • Water testing discoveries in commercial and institutional buildings
  • Water testing discoveries in residential buildings
  • Plumbing material discoveries
  • Heavy metal interactions with plastic drinking water plumbing materials
  • Organic compound leaching and sorption with plastic drinking water materials

Program Objective 3. Create a risk-based decision support tool to help guide decision makers through the identification of plumbing characteristics, operations and maintenance practices that minimize health risks to building inhabitants.

  • Critical water quality relationships for predicting legionella in residential buildings were discovered
  • Eight integrative hydraulic-water quality models were developed
  • Two decision support tools were created, are now publicly available
  • The tools can be used by building designers, owners, public health officials, regulators, policymakers, utility staff, and other professionals for predicting chemical and microbiological water quality and health risks at building fixtures.
  • There is NOTHING else like these tools currently available. They are awesome.

Who Did You Work With?

Did we mention that our academic, industry, and public sector partners and collaborators were awesome?

Where Did You Test?

Field sites were located in Indiana, Michigan, Ohio as well as California and elsewhere. Some of the buildings we investigated can be seen here.

We tested in homes, schools, office buildings, in buildings on university campuses and more.

For targeted laboratory studies we worked at our home institutions at the bench- and pilot-scales. By applying this multi-level approach we were able to unearth new discoveries and then understand why these phenomena were happening.

You Published More than 25 Peer-Reviewed Scientific Publications, that’s a lot, is There a Cliff’s Notes Version?

The final report link above shares a 1 paragraph summary of each and every publication. Browse the 17-page report above. If you are interested in one study in particular, click on the link in the report and you will be taken to it.

Do You Have a List of Organizations that Participated?

Yes, please visit the final report link above.

Did You Test Plastic Pipe?

Yes, and we also examined water quality impacts (and problems) with metal materials too. The effort’s focus was on predicting water safety at the faucet and plastics are not the only materials in use. Copper, lead, and iron pipes are also present. Plumbing materials also include other materials.

Did You Publish Everything?

As of November 2022, not yet. Various teams are still working on wrapping up studies and we expect those results to be shared in 2022 and 2023. We will post links to them on this page.

Is There a List of the Peer-Reviewed Scientific Studies Published?

Yes, please see below and the final report.

Knowledge-Gap and Synthesis Investigations

New Health Risk Assessments

New Commercial and Institutional Building Investigations

New Residential Building Investigations

New Plumbing Material Discoveries

New Modeling and Decision Support Tools Created and Made Available